SHANGHAI, Jan 16 (Reuters) - China's central bank rolled over maturing medium-term policy loan and injected fresh funds into the banking system on Monday, while keeping the interest rate unchanged for the fifth straight month, matching market expectations.
The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said it was keeping the rate on 779 billion yuan ($116.25 billion) worth of one-year medium-term lending facility (MLF) loans to some financial institutions unchanged at 2.75% from the previous operation.
In a poll of 25 market watchers last week, a vast majority of participants expected the central bank to at least maintain current liquidity in the banking system through the operation while keeping borrowing cost unchanged.
With 700 billion yuan worth of MLF loans set to expire this month, the operation resulted a net 79 billion yuan fresh fund offering.
The central bank also injected 156 billion yuan worth of short-term liquidity, including 82 billion yuan of seven-day reverse repos and another 74 billion yuan via the 14-day tenor, it said in an online statement. ($1 = 6.7010 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by Winni Zhou and Brenda Goh; Editing by Kim Coghill)
